How to Use Facebook for Better Engagement: A Complete Guide

Facebook, despite its fair share of ups and downs, remains a preferred medium to advertise. And facts support this theory too. 67% of social advertisers consider Facebook to be the most effective social media platform they use.

These stats make a stronger case:

  • There are 7 million advertisers on Facebook
  • The average cost-per-click on Facebook is $ 1.72
  • The potential reach of advertising for Facebook is 1.9 billion

In 2020, having a solid Facebook Engagement Policy is key. Now that the customers are out again to buy, it’s important to up your Facebook game.

In this blog you will learn –

1] Engagement Techniques

2] Customer Acquisition

3] Ad campaign Tactics

4] Organic Reach Tactics

5] Measurement and Analytics

# 1 Engagement techniques

There are so many different ways to engage on Facebook considering the platform’s wide variety of options – stories, posts, photos, videos, Facebook Watch, Facebook shopping etc. Here are some smart engagement techniques for Facebook.

1] Respond to people

Engagement breeds engagement. When you post anything, it’s important to take time to reply to comments, or tag people in your comments. At the same time, visit your followers’ profiles. Comment on their public posts, appreciate and get their attention.

2] Create content for Facebook groups

Groups on Facebook are still as effective as before and are yet quite underestimated. It’s great to have your own Business page on Facebook but always better to create a parallel Facebook group or join an existing relevant group. This audience is already segregated for you.

3] Create a buzz around going Live

Facebook sends a notification to all your followers when you go live. Will all your followers be free at the time? In order to maximize engagement during – Go Live – make sure you announce and promote it at least 15 days ahead. Facebook now also allows you to notify followers only a few minutes before you are going live.

4] Use Facebook Watch extensively

45% of people watch more than an hour of video on Facebook or YouTube a week. That means, Facebook Watch is still an untapped feature. Create fun and engaging videos to post on Watch. Use relevant hashtags and announce it on your posts.

5] Create a strategy for Facebook Tools

Facebook allows Messenger, posts, Watch, Notes and videos. Create a campaign strategy to touch upon your followers and unfollowers through these tools. Be consistent in posting and reaching out.

6] Respond to Messenger faster

Make sure your response time on your Facebook account is less than five hours. That’s because Facebook’s algorithm observes within how much time you responded to your last chat message and gives out the message on your Page like this –

How to Use Facebook for Better Engagement: A Complete Guide

# 2 Customer acquisition

Customer acquisition is the process of moving a user or visitor from the sales funnel that starts with the stage of awareness or consideration and taking him/her to the point of making an actual purchase.

Facebook provides a lot of advanced targeting options, creative ad options and deep metrics to help you excel in customer acquisition.

Here are some ways to maximize customer acquisition on Facebook with minimal costs:

1] Create a Facebook Business Page and Advertising account

If you don’t have one yet, it’s time to create your business page on Facebook and an advertising account. Both are part of the same process. Make sure your cover photo, logo, contact details etc. are an accurate representation of your business brand. Start posting relevant content.

2] Define your ‘target audience’ well

One of the best features of Facebook advertising is ‘Boost Post’. This feature allows you to promote your existing Facebook page content to larger audiences through paid advertising. Here’s where it’s vital you go for a specific audience demographic instead of going for broader divisions such as Male, Female or India.

3] Animated creatives

Animated ads have a better chance of engagement when you promote ads on Facebook. These may be meticulously produced videos or just animated gifs or slideshow videos. Condense your message to 15 seconds and get to the point quickly. Remember to include subtitles because most of your users won’t turn audio initially.

4] Do a ‘single variable testing’

For the purpose of testing, run two to three ads at a time. Change only one element in each ad and measure the performance of all. This cuts your cost and saves time while you are able to derive clear messages from measuring these ads.

5] Run dynamic ads too

Dynamic product ads for broader audiences are a great way to acquire customers. They may not be as creative as other types of Facebook ads but they are efficient. However, Facebook allows you to convert any image or slideshow into a motion video. Use this feature and run these ads.

6] Monitor your frequency

On Facebook too, it’s about making a consistent presence of your brand felt among your targets. Try to post twice a week in order to retain the recall value.

# 3 Ad campaign tactics

1] Choose the type of ads

Yes, Facebook offers and allows for a lot of ad types. You can go for image or video ads; video poll ads; carousal ads; slideshow ads; collection ads; instant experiences ads; dynamic ads; Messenger ads; stories ads; augmented reality ads and playable ads.

You get to choose your ad format like this –

How to Use Facebook for Better Engagement: A Complete Guide

2] Value, Pricing, Testimonial

You cannot go wrong in an advertising campaign on Facebook if you follow the three rules of ad content. 1] Include the value your product/business/service is offering; 2] Tell the pricing directly; 3] Include a customer testimonial.

TOP TIP: Use augmented reality ads. The latest Facebook feature allows users to try on make-up or dress virtually or play games. These ads are naturally enticing for users.

3] Use automation tools

In order to succeed in your Facebook ad campaign, use automation tools that Facebook provides to all advertisers.

Here are some automation tools you can use:

  • Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO): Set your budget at the campaign level, rather than the ad set level. Facebook then uses that along with your bid strategy (lowest cost per action (CPA) or highest return on ad spend (ROAS)) to maximize your ad spend.
  • Automatic Placements: Not sure where to place? Let Facebook choose ad placements for you and you can run your ads on Instagram, Audience Network, and Messenger as well as Facebook.
  • Dynamic Formats and Ad Creative: An amazing feature of Dynamic Ads delivers a personalized version of the ad to everyone who sees it, based on which ad types a certain user is most likely to respond to. Facebooks claims this delivered 34% improvement in incremental ROAS, 10% improvement in lift, and 6% lower cost per incremental purchase compared to carousel-only ads.
  • Automatic Language Translation: Facebook can auto-translate your ad into the user’s preferred language. However, quality is not guaranteed.

4] Focus on mobile-first ads

Did you know 93% of Facebook’s ad revenue comes from mobile advertising? Make sure your ad copy is for mobile users. This means your most important message should be in your primary text. Example this Facebook ad by Mountain Creek –

How to Use Facebook for Better Engagement: A Complete Guide

5] Announce your ad in stories

500 million daily users are engaging with the story feature of Facebook. You are already running a paid campaign, announcing that ads in your stories will only add to more engagement. And your ad may look like this-

How to Use Facebook for Better Engagement: A Complete Guide

6] Create amazing video ads

This is a no-brainer. Create video ads as much as possible for your Facebook ad campaign. Create a series of videos that add up, write text for your video for mobile users and keep it simple.

# 4 Organic campaign tactics

Organic campaign means the reach your Facebook page has without paid advertising. You can run campaigns organically too. However, you should know this – organic reach is on the decline since 2016 on Facebook.

This does not mean that you must not attempt it since organic campaigns will keep your reasons to constantly engage with your followers. Here are some ways:

1] Make meaningful conversations

You have posts and messenger and Facebook Watch to start meaningful conversations. Facebook algorithm prioritises content based on the following:

1] Who does the user usually interact with?

2] The type of content the post has (link, video, popularity)

3] The popularity the post

The key is to post authentic content. Refrain from clickbait or spam. Create an actual value for the users – information, DIY, tips, facts, entertainment or emotional quotient.

2] Post high-quality original videos

Ever wondered why even cringe-worthy videos get so much traction? That’s because they have some kind of entertainment value. So imagine if you created an actually good high-quality video, how much more engagement it can get? That should be your goal in organic reach.

3] Curate content based on Facebook insights

Facebook analytics page on your admin side will help you know what type of content does well. The analytics tell you which of your organic posts have done well. If you haven’t posted anything organic yet, it’s time to start experimenting.

For instance, you had posted 5 links and one image and your insights tell you that the image had more views and engagements than the links, you know what to do next.

Check out Post Metrics to dive deeper into page insights –

How to Use Facebook for Better Engagement: A Complete Guide

4] Add/invite relevant followers

Have you made user stories of your target buyers? If yes, you know much about these users: their age, income, demographic, geography, lifestyle etc. Add or invite relevant followers that match your user stories. Random fans don’t convert into customers. Attract people who are potential buyers.

5] Publish evergreen content

Always have a content calendar for your organic campaigns. Is this the Spring season? What’s relevant in spring? What are the traditions during this season? Watch out for important days such as Fourth of July, International Women’s Day, Friendship Day, Valentine’s Day etc.

# 5 Measurement and Analytics

This is the part where you sit back and truly observe how you are doing on Facebook business-wise. There are several measurement and analytics tools -both from Facebook and third-party tools. However, these are the key metrics that you need to watch out for –

1] Monitor follower growth

Track your follower growth and watch out for fluctuations. Good thing is Facebook keeps sending your reminders and alerts about new followers after each new post.

2] Brand reach on Facebook

There are views, impressions, engagements. This means your brand reached say 100 people – impressions; it was viewed by 80 people – views; it was liked/commented by 15 people – engagements.

How to Use Facebook for Better Engagement: A Complete Guide

3] Audience insight

Read up your audience insights on Facebook. What kind of audience – gender, age or area-wise – are engaging with your posts more? This gives you great fodder for running better ad campaigns.

4] Post-wise analytics

This tool helps you analyze each of your posts. Like this –

How to Use Facebook for Better Engagement: A Complete Guide

Final thoughts

Facebook remains a great way to build your audience and create a strong ‘recall value’ among the hearts and minds of your customers. When done right, Facebook is among the best social media platforms to bring your followers to purchase decisions.

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Author: Pushpa Srivastava

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